A Gift from God
by InvisiblePrincess2002
Summary: Based on the TV show "Car 54, Where Are You?" Officer Leo Schnauser and his wife Sylvia are given some unexpected news which causes both of them to leave their childish ways behind and start conducting their lives like mature adults. Two-shot.
1. An Announcement for Daddy Bear

**A/N:** This story is based on the NBC television series _Car 54, Where Are You?_ As far as I know, this television series is the property of NBC. **No infringement is intended.**

 **Chapter 1: An Announcement for Daddy Bear**

When Officer Leo Schnauser came home to his apartment in the Bronx late one Thursday evening in November, he was positive that he and Sylvia, his wife of over sixteen years, would be at each other's throats yet again. For several years now, he and Sylvia had always gotten into a shouting match with one another every Thursday night at eleven o'clock on the dot. Sylvia went to the butcher shop every Thursday, and she and the butcher would get into an argument every single time she went there without fail – which in turn put her in a terrible mood on Thursdays and sparked countless fights between her and her husband. She always ended up taking all her frustration with the butcher out on Leo and getting into the most ridiculous spats with him. They fought over whether Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire was the better dancer. They fought over Abraham Lincoln's height. They fought over whether or not James Polk was a good president. They fought over Leo's claims that Thomas Jefferson used snuff. Every Thursday night like clockwork, the Schnausers fought about anything and everything, no matter how silly or insignificant.

But when Leo walked through the door at ten till eleven that night, prepared for the inevitable bickering to begin, everything in his apartment was surprisingly quiet. Ordinarily, Sylvia would be in the living room, just waiting to pick a fight with him over some crazy little issue. Tonight, however, there was nothing but darkness and silence.

Leo turned on a light and called, "Sylvia? Sylvia, where are you?"

After looking through the living room and the kitchen without finding a trace of his wife, he went into their bedroom. Sylvia was lying in bed in her nightgown with her eyes closed and a cold compress on her forehead.

Leo walked up to Sylvia's side of the bed and inquired, "Sylvia, are you alright?"

With her eyes still closed, she shook her head no and answered, "Something's wrong, Leo."

"What's wrong, Pussycat?" he asked her sweetly. He was clearly concerned; in sixteen years of marriage, Leo Schnauser could literally count on one hand how many times his wife had gotten sick. It was common knowledge that Sylvia Schnauser had an immune system of steel.

"A couple of hours ago, I just got so lightheaded. I had to come in here and lie down. I knew if I didn't, I would pass out," she replied in an unusually weak tone of voice. Again, this was _not_ like Sylvia at all. Sylvia had an extremely overactive imagination and she was constantly being melodramatic about something. The few times she _had_ had a cold or a twenty-four-hour bug over the years, she'd convinced herself she was dying, and she'd always had Leo help her plan her funeral. This time, it was quite different. Now, Sylvia was obviously too weak and ill to even _try_ to act all dramatic about it. Leo had seen it the moment he walked into their bedroom that something was very wrong with Sylvia. The last time she'd gotten sick with a cold eight years ago, he'd walked into their apartment and found it filled with wreaths from the local funeral home, with Sylvia trying to decide which ones she wanted to buy to decorate their home with for her wake. Now, he could plainly see it that she didn't have the _strength_ to go to such wild extremes, which was why he hadn't gotten irritated or impatient with her like he would have had she started making funeral plans over a cold, as she'd done so many times before. He knew his wife, and he knew when to take a situation with her seriously and when not to. And he knew that now was the time to take things seriously.

"Do you still feel like you might pass out?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I do still feel that way a little bit. I'm so weak, and it's so hot in here."

"Sylvia, if you're not feeling any better in the morning, I'm taking you to the doctor," Leo told her firmly. He knew this wasn't like Sylvia at all, and he really was concerned.

"Okay, Leo," she whispered. Then she added, "I want to go to sleep now."

"Of course, Angel Face," Leo agreed, and in the next moment, he bent down and kissed her cheek. "I'll change into my pajamas and get into bed, and then we'll both get some sleep."

Sylvia nodded, and soon, she took off the compress and she and Leo were dead to the world.

* * *

When Sylvia first woke up the next morning, it was a complete one-eighty from the night before. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she served Leo his breakfast. After she'd set his food before him, she grabbed her own plate, sat down beside him, and dived into her mountain of eggs, bacon, biscuits, and sausage without hesitation.

"Well somebody's feeling better this morning," Leo said with a smile.

"Oh, yes," Sylvia said between bites, and Leo laughed to himself inside as he watched his wife ferociously attack her breakfast. Sylvia was _definitely_ back to her normal self.

Sylvia had always been a tad on the heavier side, and it had never been a secret that she adored food, but especially over the past four months or so, she'd really put on a significant amount of weight. There was no doubt about it that she was now considerably thicker and rounder in the middle. But Leo didn't mind; he'd always loved Sylvia no matter what weight she was at.

"I'm glad to see it. You had me a little worried last night," Leo told her.

After stuffing her face for several more moments, Sylvia finally paused long enough to say, "I don't know what happened to me last night. It was so strange. I went into the kitchen to get some cookies out of the cookie jar to cheer myself up after that stupid butcher made me mad again. Then all of the sudden, I could barely stand. I just knew I was going to pass out. It was all I could do to make it into the bedroom."

"Maybe it's something you ate. I mean, let's face it. _You have_ been doing a lot of that lately."

Sylvia instantly rose from her seat and cried out, "What is _that_ supposed to mean, Leo Schnauser?!"

"Nothing. It simply means that you've been eating a lot. You've _always_ eaten a lot, but now, you're eating twice as much as usual. If you keep this up, I may have to take a second job just to pay the grocery bill!"

"Well!" she angrily yelled, and then a moment later, she began to cry. With tears running down her face, she said, "I guess this means you think I'm fat and ugly, huh?"

Leo got up then and responded, "I never said that. I'm just warnin' ya that if ya keep eatin' food by the truckloads, we're gonna go broke."

"Well! If you think it's such a burden to support me, why don't you just divorce me and find yourself a younger, prettier, skinnier wife who eats less than I do?!" she shouted as more tears came to her eyes.

"Right now, you're making that idea look very tempting!" Leo fired back.

"Leo Schnauser, I oughtta–" Sylvia yelled, but suddenly, she got dizzy and the world around her became blurry, and she could no longer keep her balance. "Leo," she gasped as she reached out for him.

"Sylvia?" Leo said gently while he grabbed his wife and held onto her. "Sylvia, what's the matter?"

"Leo…Leo, I can't–" she gasped, and in that instant, Sylvia passed out in Leo's arms.

* * *

After Leo rushed Sylvia to the hospital, he called the station and explained to Captain Block what was going on. About two hours later, patrolmen Francis Muldoon and Gunther Toody met Leo in the hospital waiting room.

As soon as they came into the white, sterile hospital waiting room together, Francis said, "Hi, Leo. We would've gotten here sooner, but we got tied up with something at the station. Captain Block gave us permission to come to the hospital. How is Sylvia now?"

"I don't know. She's still back in one of the rooms; the doctor's takin' a look at her."

"Don't worry, Leo. I'm sure she's in good hands," said Toody. "After all, doctors are pretty smart people. Well, some of them are, anyway. Some of them are like this guy my mom went to school with, Donald Johnson. We all thought for years that he was really a doctor. He even had his own office and everything. But when he told my mother one day she needed to have her tonsils out and we later found out that she really needed an appendectomy, that's when we grew suspicious."

"Gunther," Francis said in his best warning voice, trying to shut Toody up as his babbling was _not_ helping the situation.

"As it turns out, he got his degree out of a Cracker Jack box. We were stunned!" Gunther continued, while poor Leo looked as though he was about to explode with anxiety and agitation. Gunther Toody was a kindhearted man but he was incessantly childish and dense, which often drove Captain Block and his colleagues crazy, although his partner and best friend Francis was more patient with him than the others.

"Gunther!" Francis said aloud. "That's enough, Gunther," he told him then in a quieter tone.

"Sorry," said Toody.

"I just don't understand it. Sylvia practically never gets sick. She's always been so healthy and strong. Then right out of the blue last night, she started feeling weak and lightheaded. We didn't even fight last night like we usually do every Thursday night because she was too tired to argue with me about anything," Leo explained. When he told them that, Francis recalled how Captain Block had warned them over a year and a half ago that if Leo and his wife disturbed the peace because of their arguments just one more time, they were to arrest him. Ever since then, Leo and Sylvia had still argued every Thursday night at eleven o'clock, but they'd made certain to keep the noise level down so the neighbors wouldn't call the other policemen on them. "What if something's wrong with my Pussycat?" Leo asked then, interrupting Muldoon's thoughts. "I wish I had brought her to the hospital sooner. What if it's something serious?"

A couple of seconds later, Francis put a reassuring hand on Leo's shoulder and told him, "Don't worry, Leo. Sylvia's going to be just fine. You said it yourself: she's always been healthy and strong. I'm certain that whatever it is, it's no big deal."

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I cannot concur with that," said a male voice from behind them, and then they all turned around and saw an old, average-sized, bald doctor with glasses standing in the hospital corridor. He then turned to Leo and asked, "Am I correct in assuming that you are Mrs. Sylvia Schnauser's husband?"

"That's right. I'm Officer Leo Schnauser," he confirmed. "These are my friends, Officer Francis Muldoon and Officer Gunther Toody."

The doctor then shook hands with all three men and said hello, and he introduced himself as Dr. Andrew Thomas.

Once all the necessary introductions were made and all the expected pleasantries were exchanged, Leo got straight to the point and asked, "Doctor, how is my wife? What's wrong with Sylvia? Is it bad?"

After a few seconds of painful silence, Dr. Thomas told Leo in a serious tone, "Your wife's back in Room Four. I'll take you to her now."

"Lead the way, Dr. Thomas," Leo said quietly, and then the doctor left and a very worried Leo followed behind him.

About a minute later, that very worried Leo ran into an absolutely overjoyed Sylvia. Leo was scared to death that something serious was wrong with his wife, but Sylvia was lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Daddy Bear!" she happily cried out with her arms open wide.

"Angel Face," Leo said as he walked up to her bedside, sat down, and put his arms around her. Sylvia then gave him a very long, sweet kiss, and while they were kissing, Dr. Thomas quietly slipped out of the room to give the couple some privacy. "What is it, Pussycat? What's the matter? Did the doctor tell you why you passed out this morning?" After asking her that, Sylvia started to cry and again, Leo embraced her. "Oh Pussycat, whatever it is, Daddy Bear's right here and he's gonna take care of you. It's gonna be alright. Just tell me what's wrong. No matter how bad it is, I can take it."

The embrace ended, and Sylvia shook her head and told him, "You don't understand, Leo. It's not anything bad. Just the opposite. It's something wonderful that I never dreamed was possible."

"What could possibly be so wonderful about you getting sick and fainting?"

"Daddy Bear, do you remember how we came up with our little nicknames for each other?" Sylvia asked gently, and Leo smiled.

"Of course I remember. When you were a little girl, you had this pussycat that you adored. You and your father adopted her as a small kitten when you were five, and she lived for thirteen years before she died of old age. It was one of the first things you told me about yourself, and I remembered. When we went out on our first date a few months later, I started calling you Pussycat, and I've called you that ever since. And a little while after that, you told me about how this mean kid you went to school with picked on you all the time and said over and over again that you had an ugly face, so I started calling you Angel Face because I wanted you to always remember how much I love that sweet face of yours."

Sylvia returned Leo's smile then and told him, "That's right. And two months before we got married, we got to talking about what our hopes and dreams were for our future together. You told me all about how you wanted to join the police force once you finished your military service, but you also said that there was one thing in life you always wanted even more than a career in law enforcement. You told me how much you loved children, and you talked about how you always wanted to become a father someday."

"You'd always said I was a real teddy bear, and after I told you all about how I dreamed of becoming a daddy to a house full of kids someday, you started calling me Daddy Bear."

"That's right," Sylvia concurred, wearing a mile-wide grin.

"Sylvia, I don't understand. What does all of this have to do with you fainting this morning?"

"I'm sorry, Leo. I know I'm beating around the bush. It's just that I have waited and yearned and hoped and prayed to be able to tell you this for over sixteen years now, and I want to savor every moment of it. Every second."

"Okay, Pussycat. If you want to beat around the bush and make me wait a little while for you to get to the point, that's alright by me. I'll wait."

"We both agreed before we got married that we wanted to have a big family someday, Daddy Bear, and we tried and we tried and we tried to get pregnant for so many years. We even went to see those specialists eleven years ago, and they were never able to find anything."

"I remember."

"Finally, you and I just accepted it that we were never going to have a child."

"Are you about to come to the point now?" asked Leo, and Sylvia laughed.

"Yes, I'm getting to my point," Sylvia told him, and then she took his hand and placed it on her growing stomach, and it wasn't until _then_ that Leo _finally_ began to catch on. Leo gasped as his heart rate jumped to about three hundred, and his eyes grew as wide as saucers. Sylvia continued, "My point is, after all this time…after all these years…Daddy Bear is _finally_ going to be a daddy!"

"Daddy Bear is going to be a daddy," Leo repeated in disbelief.

"That's right!" Sylvia cried out.

"I'm going to be a daddy," Leo said in the same quiet, stunned voice.

"You're going to be a daddy," said Sylvia.

And in that moment, it hit him. "I'm going to be a daddy!" he yelled, and then he threw his arms around Sylvia and kissed her lips and her face and her forehead over and over again while Sylvia both laughed and cried at the same time. At last, Leo calmed down enough to ask, "Is it true, Sylvia? Is it really true?"

"It's true," said Dr. Thomas, standing in the doorway.

"Leo, have you met Dr. Thomas?" questioned Sylvia.

"Yeah, we've already met. Sorry, doctor. I forgot all about you," said Leo, and Dr. Thomas laughed and shook his head as he walked up to the bed.

"Don't worry about it, Officer Schnauser. I stepped out of the room a couple of minutes ago so you two could talk in private. I know Mrs. Schnauser has been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and I didn't want to spoil it for her."

"We've both been waiting for this moment for a long time," said Sylvia, still wearing the same mile-wide grin.

"Well I give you two lovebirds my most sincere congratulations."

"Thanks, Dr. Thomas. So when can Sylvia and I expect our little bundle of joy?"

"I think it'll be sometime in late March."

"March? Correct me if I'm wrong, doc, but aren't pregnancies supposed to last _nine_ months?" asked Leo.

"In my expert medical opinion, I believe Mrs. Schnauser is in the beginning of her fifth month of pregnancy."

"Her _fifth month?_ But that doesn't make any sense. How can a woman be pregnant for five months and not know? Aren't women supposed to get morning sickness and feel tired all the time?"

"As I explained to Mrs. Schnauser, every woman is different. Many women do experience morning sickness, especially in their first trimester, but some women don't. And as your wife has informed me, she has always had highly irregular menstrual cycles, so she didn't think anything of it going these past several months without a period. Since Mrs. Schnauser hasn't been experiencing the symptoms commonly associated with pregnancy until now, that explains why her pregnancy has gone undetected for so long."

"Speaking of which, why has she been feeling lightheaded here lately? And why did she faint this morning? Does that mean that there's something wrong with the pregnancy?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. A woman's body undergoes some enormous changes during a pregnancy. A pregnant woman's heart rate goes up, her heart pumps more blood every minute, and there's a thirty to fifty percent increase in the amount of blood in her body. A pregnant woman's blood pressure is often at its lowest by the middle of her pregnancy. Her nervous and cardiovascular systems gradually adjust to these changes and they usually maintain enough blood flow to her brain. However, sometimes a pregnant woman's cardiovascular and nervous systems don't adjust quickly enough, which can cause periods of dizziness or lightheadedness, or even make her lose consciousness. It's quite a normal thing to happen in a pregnancy. Just make sure your wife gets plenty of rest and maintains a healthy diet and sees your family physician regularly for check-ups, and Lord willing, everything should be alright."

Leo's face lit up just like Sylvia's then, and he bent down and gave Sylvia a very long, passionate kiss. In the next moment he said, "Thank you, doctor. Thank you so much."

"You can take Mrs. Schnauser home now. Just be sure to make an appointment with your family doctor as soon as possible."

"Will do, doc. Come on, Pussycat. Let's go home," said Leo as he helped Sylvia up off the exam table. Moments later, they walked out of the room arm in arm, humming together and daydreaming about their little one.


	2. Answered Prayers

**A/N:** See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.

 **Chapter 2: Answered Prayers**

It was one o'clock in the morning of the twentieth of March, and rain was pouring down outside as Sylvia lay in bed with agonized tears streaming down her face, clinging to her husband for dear life. A flash flood had begun the day before, and because of all the water, it was basically impossible for Leo to drive Sylvia to the hospital. Her labor had begun eighteen long hours before, and as it progressed, the flooding began in earnest. Leo had tried to get an ambulance out to their apartment to take Sylvia to the hospital, but they hadn't been able to reach their residence due to the flooding. Leo called Captain Block as a last resort to see if he had any ideas, and while he hadn't been able to come up with a way to get Sylvia to the hospital, he did send Toody and Muldoon to the Schnausers' apartment building due to the fact that they both had delivered a number of babies in the backseat of their patrol car. Toody and Muldoon hadn't been able to drive their car to the Schnausers' place because of all the water in the streets, but they walked there on foot (and got completely drenched in the process.) After they arrived, Leo lent them some of his clothes to wear, and the three gentlemen did what they could to help Sylvia through her long and arduous labor. Sylvia had now been pushing for five hours straight, and there was no sign of the baby. No matter how hard Sylvia pushed, the baby simply would not come. The longer her labor progressed, the more the gentlemen worried that something might seriously go wrong, even deadly wrong, for both mother and child.

Leo was now sitting behind Sylvia, holding her up in his arms. Like Francis and Gunther, his sleeves were also rolled up, and he looked just as disheveled – and terrified – as his friends did.

"I'm dying, Leo," Sylvia said with a sob as she looked up into her husband's eyes. "This is going to kill me."

Tears filled Leo's eyes in that moment as he held Sylvia close and tenderly kissed the top of her head over and over again. "No it's not, Angel Face," he whispered. "I know it feels that way, but this is not going to kill you. I promise. It's going to be alright. We're going to get through this."

"Are you praying, Leo? Are you praying for the baby and me?"

"Of course I am, sweetheart," Leo whispered, and then he planted yet another kiss on the top of her head. "I'm praying for you with all my heart and soul now."

"Tell me you love me, Leo. I really need to hear that right now."

"I love you, Angel Face. I love you so much," Leo told her seriously. "I love you more than anything in this world."

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Gunther, who was usually very childish, actually became sober-minded in those moments and behaved like a true adult. He looked Sylvia straight in the eyes then and told her, "I know it's terrible right now, Sylvia. I can't even imagine what the pain must be like. But don't quit. Don't give up."

Francis, who was sitting at the foot of the bed watching for the baby, looked up into Sylvia's eyes a second later and said, "Gunther's right, Sylvia. Don't give up. Not now. Your baby needs you."

Sylvia nodded, and after Leo looked into her eyes and gave her a firm, loving kiss on the lips, she took a deep breath and pushed with the next contraction.

* * *

Three hours later, the baby's feet, legs, and body had emerged, but not the head. Sylvia was still crying from the pain, and Leo was still sitting behind her supporting her, and he was tenderly massaging her lower back, which did give her some relief from the agony.

"I know it's hard, Sylvia," Francis told her sympathetically. Beads of anxious perspiration were pouring down his face. He and Gunther had delivered many babies in the back of their patrol car before, but he'd honestly never seen a birth that was this difficult and frightening. "I know the pain is really bad," he continued. "But you can't quit now. Your baby's almost here."

"Just one more push, sweetheart," Leo whispered in her ear as he continued rubbing her back. "Just one more. Give it one more try. You're almost there, baby. You're almost there. You're doing such a great job."

"A wonderful job," Gunther said seriously.

"That's right, sweetheart. A wonderful job," Leo agreed. "I don't think I've ever told you this before, Sylvia, but you're a remarkable human being. I know that if it were me, I never could have come this far. You're so amazing."

"Really?" she said as more silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Yes, sweetheart. Really. I'm blown away by you, Sylvia. I really am."

"Just try one more time to push the baby out, Sylvia. Just one more time," said Francis.

In the next moment, Sylvia started having another contraction and somehow, after so many hours of long, hard work and brutal pain, she found the strength to push one last time.

Several seconds later, Francis announced, "The baby's out."

"You did it, Angel Face," Leo told Sylvia, and then he gave her a big kiss. "You did it. I am so proud of you."

After a few painful moments of deafening silence, Sylvia asked, "What's wrong? Why isn't our baby crying?"

"Francis, what's going on?" asked a very panicked Leo.

"Just give me a minute, Leo," Francis said solemnly, and for the next couple of minutes, no one made a sound as he frantically performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the limp, lifeless little baby in his arms. In those moments, Sylvia, Leo, and Gunther all prayed harder than they'd ever prayed before in their entire lives.

At long last, the baby let out a loud wail, and as soon as she started crying, everybody else in the room began crying with her.

Francis then wrapped the baby up in a towel, placed her in her mother's arms, and said, "Here she is, Sylvia. Here's your beautiful baby girl."

Sylvia looked up then and said through her tears, "Thank You, Jesus. Thank You so much."

"Amen," Leo whispered, and then he gave Sylvia the most passionate kiss he'd ever given her in all their years of marriage.

* * *

Fortunately, the flood waters quickly receded over the next couple of days, and about eight hours after Sylvia Schnauser gave birth to her daughter, Leo, Francis, and Gunther were able to get them to the hospital. Despite the baby's difficult birth, the doctor quickly pronounced her healthy. Sylvia, too, was given a clean bill of health, and the doctor wasted no time in giving her some medication to ease all her pain and help her sleep after her harrowing ordeal.

The next day, Leo came to the hospital carrying a huge bouquet of long-stemmed red roses and a big box of Sylvia's favorite chocolates. As soon as Leo came in and sat down on Sylvia's bed, she gave him a ferocious hug and a long kiss.

"How are you feeling today, Angel Face?" Leo gently asked.

"I'm feeling many different things all at once," she told him truthfully. "Overjoyed. Exhausted. Excited. Thrilled. Petrified."

"I think I know what you mean. I think I'm going through the same thing myself."

"I feel like I've been going through my whole life blindfolded, and I never really began seeing things until the wee hours of yesterday morning when I was in the middle of an agonizing, terrifying childbirth. When I first heard our daughter cry yesterday, Leo…when I first held her in my arms and looked into her precious little face… _that_ was the moment that I finally understood what life was really all about. Our priceless little baby girl…she's not an accident, Leo. God, Himself created her. She's a miracle."

"I couldn't agree more."

"All my life as I was growing up, my parents went to fortune tellers and had their palms read and messed around with tarot cards and all those things, and I've messed around with that kind of stuff in my life as well. I never took Jesus or the Bible seriously…until yesterday. Leo, I knew that if Jesus didn't give the baby and me a miracle, we weren't going to make it. My parents always put their faith in black magic and witchcraft, but as I was in the middle of giving birth, I knew that it was only the Lord God, Himself, who could save us. I'm sure you felt it too."

Leo nodded and said, "You're right, Sylvia. I could sense it that we were really in trouble. I knew we needed divine help if we were going to get through it. I never prayed so hard in all my life."

"Neither did I. When the hospital chaplain came to visit me earlier this morning, we talked about my experience, and he let me borrow his Bible. I opened it up and got to reading it. I got to reading the first chapter of Romans. It really, _really_ made me do some hard thinking, Leo. The first chapter of Romans talks about how the evidence of God can clearly be seen throughout creation. I can take one look into our daughter's face and see that God, Himself created her. It also talks about the consequences of unbelief and rejecting the Lord. It says that those who remain in their unbelief are actually suppressing the truth about the Lord, which can be clearly seen throughout creation. It goes on to talk about how God actually gave people like that in Paul's time over to the lusts of their own hearts; over to sexual immorality and even homosexuality. What I read in the Bible today…it hit me hard. It made me think, Leo. I think it actually made me grow up."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it, Leo. All our lives, we've both been so childish, and we've just been living for ourselves. We haven't trusted in Christ like we should have. We haven't paid Jesus the reverence and respect He's due just for creating this majestic world we live in, which clearly proves to all humanity who He really is. In my foolishness, I suppressed the truth about Jesus Christ because I didn't want to stop living for myself. I didn't want someone else's desires to come before my own, not even the desires of the Almighty God. But when I first held our baby in my arms, I couldn't deny the truth about the Lord any longer. And _I don't want_ to deny the truth about Jesus any longer. Whether we like it or not, Leo, the time is going to come when we're going to have to stand before God and be judged for the way we've lived our lives. The evidence of creation itself proves that God is a perfect, just, and holy God, a God so remarkable that He would actually allow His only begotten Son to die on a cross to pay the eternal penalty for all our sins. After looking into our little girl's face, I see the truth. Leo, you and I have got to grow up, once and for all. We've got to stop suppressing the truth about Jesus. We've got to start acting like adults – _Godly_ adults – for the sake of our precious daughter."

After a long silence, Leo soberly nodded and told Sylvia, "I think I understand what you're saying. This may sound crazy, but as terrifying as yesterday morning was, I really could sense that Jesus was in our bedroom with us, helping us to bring our little girl into the world. I think it's only because of Jesus that you and our baby came through it alive. I think it's because of our pride that we haven't wanted to admit the truth, that Jesus died on that cross about two thousand years ago to save humanity from eternal condemnation. But you're right. We can't do that anymore. We've got a little girl to think about now. It _is_ high time that you and I started growing up and behaving like Godly adults.

"My father's best friend was a pastor, and I listened to him and my dad talk about the Bible for hours when I was a kid. He said that there was a difference between salvation and discipleship. He said that salvation is free and that all we have to do if we want Jesus to save us from our sins is to accept His free gift of eternal life. He said that discipleship, on the other hand, is costly; that being a disciple of Jesus Christ means carrying our crosses and following Him. He made a point of saying over and over again that even if a person doesn't choose to spend their life serving Jesus as a disciple, if he's trusted in Christ for salvation, he is saved because salvation isn't about our works. It's about the finished work on the cross that Jesus did. Especially after yesterday morning, I know now beyond a doubt how real Jesus is, and I believe in Him, Sylvia."

"So do I."

"So I guess now that we've said yes to the free gift of eternal life, the question is, do we want to spend the rest of our lives as disciples serving Him instead of our own selfish desires."

"I do, Leo. I don't want to go on living just for myself anymore. I want Jesus to turn me into the human being, the wife, the friend, and especially the mother, that He wants me to be."

"And I want Jesus to do the same for me. I want to be the best person, the best friend, the best cop, and most importantly, the best husband and father, that I can possibly be."

"I want to call her Jane. The name Jane comes from Hebrew origins and it means 'a gift from God.' And that's precisely what our daughter is, Leo. She's an utterly astounding gift from the Almighty God. She's such an incredible gift that her mere presence has helped us to say yes to Jesus."

"You're right, Pussycat. She is a gift, an astounding gift, from God to us. Jane it is."

"You've always talked about how close you and your grandmother were, so I'd like for her middle name to be Elizabeth, after her."

"I love it," Leo said with a big smile. "Jane Elizabeth Schnauser. It's perfect."

"I love you, Leo," Sylvia said in an emotional whisper.

"I love you too, Sylvia," Leo said warmly, and then he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a very long, loving kiss.


End file.
